"The first task of education is to stir life, but letting it free to develop itself"

María Montessori

Dementia is a long-term disease with a progressive loss of intelectual functions and increased dependency. This is an undeniable fact, as it is that patients need specialized care, to protect their dignity and maximize their quality of life and that of their families when in the latter stages of the disease.

” Forever People” program uses the Montessori Method adapted by Fundacion Matia and it is applied to people with advanced dementia, even in severe stages.

The Montessori Method is an alternative educational approach, based on child development theories devised by Italian educator Maria Montessori, that emphasize activity, directed by the child, and clinical observation directed by the teacher. The goal of observation is to adapt children´s learning environment to their level of development. Given its successful educational outcomes, it has been adapted for people with special educational needs, like is the case of demented people.

The Montessori method provides very simple activities of daily living, increasing difficulty and trying to stimulate all the patient's remaining cognitive abilities. In this working method the protagonist is the patient and those tasks performed spontaneously, from which others more complex will be proposed. These tasks will be performed using everyday objects.

The aim of this project is training professionals and society about the necessity to preserve the dignity and to keep autonomy, no matter how small, of severe demented people, without falling into therapeutic nihilism, common in these patients´ later stages of life.